Page 85 of Sexy as Sin
“Are the fatigues Army?”
“Two tours in Afghanistan. Out eight months. Shoulda stayed in. Couldn’t stand to stay in.”
“Honorably discharged? Felony record?”
Some more breathing. “Yeah. And no.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Brett,”Willow said, but Jim shook his head at her and said, “Yeah, I can prove it.”
“Right.” Brett pulled a card out of his wallet and handed it over. “Call this woman tomorrow. After ten, so I can let her know you’ll be calling. She’ll find you something. Security guard, probably. Janitor, worst case.”
Jim took the card. “I’ll take either one.”
“Use the money to get a haircut and a shave,” Brett said. “And to buy a pair of civilian work pants at the thrift store, if you want a better shot at the security guard idea. Use the Laundromat. After that—you have to show up, and you have to do the job. You don’t, and you’re out again.”
“I can do the job,” Jim said. He didn’t say, “Thanks.” But then, Brett hadn’t expected him to.
Brett stuck his hand out, and Jim looked at it for a minute, then clasped it hard before he let go. Brett said, “Thanks for sitting with her, man. And you’re right. I was an asshole.”
It was even colder outside, Brett wasn’t walking well at all, and the rain was... worse. The rain wasterrible.Willow said, “It’s raining ice. How can that even be a thing? It’s horrible.”
He didn’t say anything. He was heading around the car, and she took the opportunity to climb into the driver’s seat and punch the starter. He hesitated a moment, then climbed in on the passenger side and said, “I was driving.”
“You were hurting. Where’s the heat?”
He flipped switches, and she pulled out into traffic and said, “Bugger. I just realized I’m driving on the right. Oh, bugger, bugger, bugger.”
He laughed, and something in her chest, which had been tight ever since she’d seen his stony face come through the smeared glass door, relaxed. He said, “I wondered. The location of the driver’s seat might have tipped you off.”
“You’re cool, mate,” she muttered. “I’m closing my eyes until it’s over.”
“No, you’re not. If you want to pull over and let me drive, though, go ahead.”
“No. Sometime has to be the first. May as well be when I’m rocked off my pins anyway. Direct me, though. And tell me I don’t have to do it for long. How far did I get? I had no clue where I was, except that I didn’t seem to be getting any closer to the posh part of town.”
“Less than a mile. Call it one and a half kilometers. Turn left at the light. You’ll want to wait for the green arrow. Left is the complicated turn when you drive on the right.”
“One and a halfkilometers?I got a blister the size of a dollar coin on the tops of my toes for one and a half kilometers? You mean I could have avoided the plague blanket and the Ebola toilet, not to mention having to be rescued bythreemen?”
“That’s about the size of it. You must have walked in circles. Next time you run away from home, take your phone, would you? Turn left again up here on Everett, then your third right, and the garage will be on your left. You scared me.”
She followed his directions, tried to believe that she wasn’t going to scrape the sides of the parked cars to her right, jumped at the blast from a car horn to her left—she’d crossed the line, apparently—headed down a parking ramp with a silent prayer of relief, pulled into the spot he pointed out, and let out her breath.
She finally realized what he’d said. “I did?”
“You did. I thought something had happened to you. I wanted to go look for you, but I didn’t know where to look.” He reached for his crutches and climbed out, and she came around the car fast, in case he needed a shoulder. He didn’t look steady at all. Her toes might hurt, but his whole body did, and his voice had been too tight when he’d said that.
In the lift, she said, “Thanks for the coat. Saved me from becoming an ice block myself.”
“Not at all.”
When the doors opened, he swung himself down to the door of his loft with what she knew was pure willpower. Inside it, he started to sit on the bench by the door, but she touched his arm and said, “No. Come upstairs and let me help with your shoes. And everything else.”
He looked up at her, and for once, she could read him perfectly. Surprise, and wariness, and so much fatigue. “You want to talk, though,” he said. “I know we have to talk.”
She laughed. How could she help it? And got more surprise for that. “Mate. You say it like, ‘You want to eat ground glass. I know we have to eat glass.’”
